


Seven Minutes in Heaven('s Janitorial Closet)

by nightbloomingcereus



Series: Name That Author prompt fills [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Humor, Implied Sexual Content, Multi, OR DOES IT?!?!?, Post-Apocalypse, What happens in the back channel closet stays in the back channel closet, heaven and hell office building, is actually a janitorial closet, the "back channel"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:14:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24955921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightbloomingcereus/pseuds/nightbloomingcereus
Summary: God does not play dice with the universe, but She does play an ineffable game of Her own devising, which might be compared to the human party game known as Seven Minutes in Heaven.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Name That Author prompt fills [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1737703
Comments: 27
Kudos: 64
Collections: Name That Author Round Five: After Dark Redux





	Seven Minutes in Heaven('s Janitorial Closet)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Name That Author: Round 5 (After Dark) on the GO-events discord. The prompt was "There is a door that should never be open. It's open." Shout out to [curtaincall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curtaincall) for running the game and for the title of this story!

Behind the lobby of the Heaven and Hell office building, across from the elevators, is a closet. Officially, it's a janitorial closet, but neither of the tenants, for different reasons, understands why janitors are necessary. Unofficially, it's the back channel.

(There may be no janitors, but the closet _does_ have a self-cleaning mechanism akin to those found in self-cleaning loos on street corners. It smells overwhelmingly of harsh, fake-lemon disinfectant, but this is immensely preferable to the alternative, an unspeakable combination of mingled holy and unholy effluvia.)

The interior entrances from Upstairs and Downstairs require the deposition of a token to enter. These are hot commodities, although the now-defunct Boston T tokens also work, at least on the Hell side[1]. The lobby door doesn't ever open.

One week after the failed apocalypse, Aziraphale and Crowley kiss for the first time in Saint James Park, in full view of the Saturday crowds, several secret agents, a pair of poorly disguised angel and demon spies, and a flock of ducks. Afterward, they head, giddily arm-in-arm, back to the privacy of the bookshop. The door shuts behind them, the sign flips to _closed_.

But when one door closes, another one opens. Every seven minutes, to be exact, the door to the back-channel closet starts bursting open with a loud, obnoxious egg-timer ding. Someone, it seems, has a sense of humor. Or justice.

(Someone is also far too amused by human party games. Humans have always been the most ingenious of Her creations, but in this particular case they've gotten it wrong: seven minutes in Heaven would be very boring indeed, unless you happened to have an appointment on the one day when a massive pillar of hellfire appeared in the executive conference room.)

This would not be such a big deal, because the general public does not ever enter the building, except for the fact of the security camera pointed directly at the door.

Within one day, it records the following interactions:

  * Four – no, five – Erics, plus the cute, floppy-haired angel from Heavenly Reception, enthusiastically taking advantage of _back channels_. Also, one big avocado.
  * A squirming mass of tentacles. And Sandalphon, squirming.
  * Hastur, his face suspiciously wet. Michael, awkwardly patting the droopy frog on his head.
  * An orange, hairy, googly-eyed thing of great and eldritch power, ethereal-occult-other status undetermined.
  * Uriel, wearing nothing except a silk rope tied in a number of elaborate knots. Dagon, who is very good at sailor's knots.
  * Several demons furtively brushing their teeth.
  * The Archangel _fucking_ Gabriel.



The CCTV feed goes to three places. The surveillance departments of Heaven and Hell have immediately and conveniently lost their connections.

The third place it goes is to a thirty-year-old, box-shaped computer in a bookshop in Soho, which had until then never seen anything more titillating than disturbingly perfect tax forms. The bookshop's occupants are otherwise occupied with slaking six thousand years of thirst, and so the machine takes it upon itself to save these recordings in a folder titled "Insurance Forms."

* * *

[1] Although there is always the risk that you might end up like Eric's predecessor Charlie, who, if you believe the stories they tell around the bonfires in the Sixth Circle, used a T token to enter the closet and was never heard from again. return to text

**Author's Note:**

> [Charlie on the MTA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.T.A._\(song\))
> 
> Yes, that's Gritty. For more blessed Gritty/GO content, you should check out [this incredible story by Princip1914](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24435148)!
> 
> Tag yourself in the comments! I'm Eric #5, sometimes overlooked, but still having a great time.


End file.
